17.11.14

Yarrawarra Corindi Beach - A walk through cultural landscapes

A visit to the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Corindi Beach. The Wadjar Regional Indigenous Gallery showcases the works of regional Indigenous artists, artisans and craftspeople.

"The Gumbaynggirr peoples have occupied the Mid North Coast from the Nambucca to the Clarence River since the Yuludarla or the Dreaming."  A persistent caring for country manufactured some stunning culturescapes. A sustainable way of life enables various biological communities to flourish in diverse abundance.

A few walks through some of the habitats in the area:
A pandanus studded coast, rich with estuaries for fishing in canoes. Elaborate stone fish traps and shell middens tell of the abundance of harvesting these waters.


The Wallum (indigenous word for Banksia aemula occuring there) heath (pdf) vegetation on coastal dunefields is stunning and unique. Wallum Heathland is unrivalled for its wealth of biodiversity. Pockets of coastal rainforest.


Plants provide rich food sources:
Yams, Blue Flax Lilies, Pandanus, Banksias and Giant Waterlies to name just a few - provide 'bush tucker'.


Many of the plant fibers are woven into strings and rope for fishing implements, carrying bags and beautiful fiber craft.


Stunning Aboriginal scarred trees remain in the coastal forests despite the deforestation, land clearing and slash and burn culture of the present day 'life style' of settler monoculture.


The Coffs Harbour Local Aboriginal Land Council just successful reclaimed a 3.7 km stretch of beach and fore dune known as Red Rock Beach (located between Red Rock and Corindi.) Hopefully, this unique environment will be safe from 'development'.


'Red Rock' or Blood Rock is a reminder of the 1880s massacres of British colonisation. (pdf)
The Aboriginal Australia Information Deficit Syndrome (AAIDS) suffers from amnesia and denialism.

The point has been reached in the anthropocene where humanity now willfully, with eyes wide open, discontinues the age old existence of humans on the Earth in a habitable and benign climate. The co-existence with other species is also terminated - bio-diversity is kicked off the planet.

With the ship of fools or Shipwreck With Spectator ( H Blumenberg ) we are steering into the end phase of a bare survival mode. So much could have been learned from a sustainable way of interacting with the indigenous Australian people and their land.


 
Links
Aboriginal history of the Coffs Harbour region pdf

Coastal Walks:
Yuraygir coastal walk, map
Mulloway to Red Rock Walk, pdf



Images:
All images from the outside walls of the Yarrawarra Aboriginal Cultural Centre, @InfoYarrawarra, Corindi Beach


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